The Platypus Test
by Grav
Summary: Other girls get dolls or embroidery lessons. Her father's gifts are much more interesting.


**AN**: This story comes from a conversation I had with tielan about what makes an abnormal abnormal, and why the entire animal population of Australia doesn't qualify.

**Spoilers**: None, really

**Rating**: Kid Friendly

**Disclaimer**: Still not mine.

**Characters**: Helen Magnus, Gregory Magnus

**Summary**: Other girls get dolls or embroidery lessons. Her father's gifts are much more interesting.

* * *

**The Platypus Test**

Other girls get dolls or embroidery lessons. Helen could have those if she wished, and she's starting to think that good stitching would probably come in handy when she is grown up and a doctor, but mostly she prefers the other gifts her father gives her.

It's the morning of her seventh birthday, and she is on her best behaviour. She doesn't really believe that her father will withhold presents if she is anything less than perfect, but it's not so big an effort, and there's no reason to take unnecessary risks at this stage. So she eats her egg and observes that most inconvenient of adult wisdoms, that children should be seen and not heard.

"Would you like to come downstairs before your lessons?" Gregory asks, laying the paper aside and setting down his teacup.

"Yes, thank you father," Helen says prettily, but her enthusiasm is unfeigned.

Her father is starting to let her into the basement more often, and he is willing to answer more and more of her questions. She knows that most of the household staff do not approve of this, but it's all so fascinating that she can't understand why they think it's something she ought not to know.

"Just for a few minutes," he cautions. "Miss Lawrence is to take you out today."

The outing was something of a compromise. Miss Lawrence did not think Helen should have an entire day free simply because it was her birthday, but had agreed to take her somewhere rather than confine them both to the study for the entire afternoon.

"That's all right, father," Helen says. There are a thousand places in the house where her father could have hid her present. If he's had to keep it in the basement, it's either large, alive, dangerous, or all three at once, and that is worth a silent breakfast.

"Come along then," he says, and takes her hand.

Helen knows that there are parts of the basement she has yet to see. Her father has showed her some of the smaller animals he's been working with, and she's seen all of his surgical equipment laid out, even though she's seen none of it used in practice. But she's never been further into the basement than that first room, and she knows that there is much that her father is waiting to teach her. Accordingly, she has done her very best to grow up as quickly as possible.

Today, though, she skips next to him and he smiles. She wonders, sometimes, if he would like it better if she were a boy or if she were what the upstairs maid called a proper girl. But deep down, she knows that her father is proud of her, and is glad she is interested in all the things he is.

"Cover your eyes," he says when they reach the door. Helen obediently raises her hands. She's not even tempted to peek. She'll see it soon enough, after all, and this confirms her earlier supposition that her gift is not possible to wrap.

Her father takes her shoulders and steers her into the room. She breathes deeply, and finds the typical smells of sulphur, formaldehyde and disinfectant have been slightly diluted. She inhales again, and smells standing water. Her father's hands squeeze, and she knows he is glad that she has not let her lack of sight prevent her from making observations.

"Go ahead," he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice as she drops her hands.

There is a rather large tank on the floor where the surgical table usually stands. Its water is murky, which Helen deduces quickly is because the tank also contains a great deal of dirt. Whatever her gift is, it is clearly does not live in water alone. The tank is too tall for her to reach over, which she assumes her father has done on purpose to prevent exactly that, but Gregory is tall enough, and once he has donned a pair of leather gloves that cover him to his elbows, he reaches into the tank and pulls out a squirming creature about as long as his forearm.

Helen cannot help but squeal in delight. Whatever it is, it's absolutely exquisite, and like nothing she's ever seen before. Its body is normal enough, wet brown fur sleek against its flanks, but its tail is wide and flat, and its snout is very nearly a duck's beak.

"What is it?" she asks, curiously sticking out one finger to pet its side.

"Be mindful of its feet," her father says. "It has poisoned spurs."

Helen smiles.

"And it's called a platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus," he continues. "It's from Australia."

"It's amazing," Helen says.

"Indeed," her father agrees, looking down at the creature in his arms. "When they were first brought back to England, the gentlemen at the Royal Society thought they were an Asian hoax."

"Did they expect all animals everywhere to look the same?" Helen asks, not quite scornfully.

"I suppose they were just not expecting to see something so marvelous," Gregory replies.

"Someday, I shall go to Australia and find something even stranger," Helen declares. If her father can have human patients and dabble with other creatures, there's no reason she can't as well.

"I do not doubt it," he says.

Gregory leaned forward and set the platypus back in the water with a small splash. He removed the gloves and set them on a hook to dry. Helen watched the creature as it swam around and nosed at the mud.

"How can it see with its eyes closed?" she says, for the creature's eyes were shut tight against the water.

"I've no idea," Gregory says airily. "It's something we can look into. But you need to go back upstairs and prepare for your outing."

For the first time all day, Helen is reluctant to do as she is bidden. She can't get the creature out on her own, not without moving the furniture, anyway, and that is not always easy to hide the evidence of, but she could watch through the glass, and make some sketches.

"This evening, Helen," her father says, having read her intent. "I'll have a drafting table set up for you by then."

"Thank you, father," she says warmly. "It's lovely."

"Happy birthday, Helen," he replies, and she goes back upstairs into the sunlight.

* * *

Years will pass before she determines how the platypus sees with its eyes shut under water. In the meantime, she draws it from every angle and observes its behaviours in the tank. At first, she is afraid that it will miss Australia and become ill, but it lives to a ripe old age of fourteen under her care. When it dies, her father asks her if she would like another, but since Helen is about to undertake a tour of Europe she decides to wait.

She doesn't realize that the platypus was a test until the night her father shows her the rest of what goes on in the basement of their house. She understands then that her reaction to it, her care of it, and her studious approach to learning about it, was as closely monitored by her father as the platypus was monitored by her. The platypus was a test, and one that she passed.

She doesn't always have a platypus on hand, but whenever her Sanctuary is in a relatively stable position she tries to. It's a good object lesson, after all, something that was thought to be a trick, thought to be impossible, and is now so widely accepted that it appears on a coin. Each abnormal, she realizes, faces its own version of the platypus test, and with each human that passes, her job is all the more complete. She has a long way to go, she knows, and even with her lifespan, she might never see the job finished, but that creature, with its poisoned spurs, electrolocation and mammalian egg-laying gives her hope.

* * *

**fin**

**Notes**: Well that became a bit more profound than I'd planned on!

Gravity_Not_Included, March 4, 2011**  
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